Toblino: lakes, legends, castles and wines
A small lake of Alpine waters, and an environment so unique that it is classed as a biotope, in need of protection at all costs. A medieval castle, bu...
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GUIDE TO ITALIAN LIVING
Autumn blush
A cunning thing that the vines do to prepare themselves for their winter rest is to shed their leaves, as do so many plants that live in temperate cli...
Vendemmia 2021: a balance
The grape harvest is over. The tension that defined recent weeks seems to have dissipated. It’s time to stop. It’s time to take stock. ...
Bolgheri, and the other Maremmas
Very recently, we’ve talked about the Maremma and its red wines, and we’ve touched on the idea that the sharpest commentators se...
Maremma and its red wines
It’s not rare for parts of Italy to be distorted in shape and substance by arbitrary, administrative borders, dividing the integral and blurring...
Venus and Mars: the heavenly couple
We know that the Etruscans – in their tongue which has yet to be decoded – called them Turan and Laran. These names mean no...
The grape harvest – then and now
September is the month that marks the end of summer, and the return to work or to school. It’s a month of new beginnings, of great expectations,...
The other Sangiovese is white
Italy has the greatest range of grape varieties in the world: 182 types of table grapes and more than 545 that can be used for winemaking. Many of the...
Good wine is made in the vineyard
How many times have we heard the phrase “Good wine is made in the vineyard”? There’s no getting away from this simple rule...
City Vines
In the beginning it was a tiny group of visionaries, enthusiasts and nostalgists. Today it has grown so large that it has its own institution, the U.V...
Resistant grapevines
If you hang out with wine lovers, you might have started to take note of an agriculture debate that is ruffling feathers in the wine world. At the hea...
Attack of the Phylloxera
No history of wine and vines can possibly omit the story of phylloxera. Over the years, on my many travels among vineyards, time and again I’ve...
Ice in the vines
April is always a difficult month for winemakers. It’s a period when they walk on a knife-edge between the excitement of seeing the buds push th...
Vermentino: the savor of the sea.
No one quite knows where Vermentino originally came from. The most widely held theory maintains that the grape hails from Spain, from where it spread ...
Pruning: rest and rebirth
It’s winter, and the vines are enjoying some well-deserved respite after the harvest. The leaves have fallen to the ground and the bare branches...
Cabernet Sauvignon, the grape of two worlds
Cabernet Sauvignon is the most widely cultivated grape in the world. To give you some idea of its popularity, the famous journalist and wine critic Ja...
Sangiovese: history and legend
One of the most important grape varieties of Italy, the word Sangiovese embodies some of the complexity – or versatility, perhaps – in a c...
The Summer of St. Martin
“The Summer of St. Martin lasts three days and a bit” goes the Tuscan adage. In late autumn, there are usually three or four days in which...
Poggio Casciano, in the name of the rose
“Rosa Fresca Aulentissima” is one of the most famous and quoted beginnings in Italian literature, drawn from the repertoire of thirte...
Aqua di Venus, pink Tuscany
It might be the color, the shade of seduction. Or the graceful filigree aromas. Or the flavors, simultaneously bold and gentle. Or it could be all of ...
Aperitivo: a modern ritual with an ancient flavour
So widespread that it’s the subject of arguments and the set-up of jokes, so universal that it ignores borders, and so enticing that it brings p...
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